


Cleanliness Is Next to Princeliness

by LokoteiBex



Category: Tangled (2010), Tangled: The Series (Cartoon)
Genre: Extremely mild suggestive dialogue a couple times, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2019-10-10 19:03:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17431757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokoteiBex/pseuds/LokoteiBex
Summary: Eugene keeps his person clean, but not so much his room. He can't let Rapunzel see this slovenly mess!!





	Cleanliness Is Next to Princeliness

**Author's Note:**

> This was a prompt I got on Tumblr some time ago, and only rediscovered the drabble. It was written well before the series started (the publication date reflects that).

     Eugene was a fastidious person. He was impeccably groomed, even when he was poor. He always made sure his clothes were clean and his hair trimmed and brushed. It was difficult to stay clean shaven because his facial hair grew in so fast, but he did shave every morning! And his teeth! Oh, his teeth were stupendous. Straight and white and clean and sparkling, a rarity for someone who grew up under the conditions he had.

     Unfortunately, his good grooming did not extend into his personal space. He wasn’t used to having things, and so his things were often everywhere. Excessively so. So much so that it was starting to get difficult to open his door.

     Not good.

     Eugene found himself standing in the middle of the room, looking around at the clothes that were strewn, the piles of borrowed books on every flat surface, the stale crusts of bread that he hadn’t quite finished before stashing them away. It was a huge mess, unforgivably so, and he was ashamed, but also not sure where to start in cleaning it. With a mess this massive, what did you do? Sort by color? Shove it under the bed? Throw it out the window?

     His thoughts were interrupted by a happy little tapping at his door. Crap. That was Rapunzel’s knock.

     “Uh… who is it?” he called out.

     Her voice giggled from the other side. “It’s me, silly. Can I come in?”

     “Umm… not right now?”

     “Why not? Are you  _naked_  in there?”

     The suggestive tone of her voice made Eugene blush, which was odd. There were times he’d caught her looking at his scantily-clad form while they were swimming, and he’d always grinned wolfishly and made a point of showing off what nature and hard work had given him, at which point her looks had become stares. But for some reason, her being the one to bring it up, especially when he didn’t want her to come in because he was ashamed of what she would find, flustered him immensely.

     “Nope! Just, uhhh…” How did she do that? How did she make him lose his silver tongue and quick wit? How did the very idea of her impish smile give him the vocabulary of a poorly-trained parrot? “I’m doing… something.”

     “What kind of something? Can I help?”

     Jeez, why was she being so pushy?

     Because she loved him and wanted to spend time with him, that was why. And he knew it. And he felt guilty and undeserving of the smart, funny, engaging, talented, beautiful, artistic, wonderful woman on the other side of the door.

     “I just… I’m kind of…” he floundered.

     There was no response from Rapunzel, which was worrying. Had he hurt her feelings? Had she gotten mad and left? Was she somewhere crying now? Crap.

     “Blondie?”

     Eugene started to wade through the mess towards the door, trying very hard not to leave footprints on silk or crush velvet that wasn’t meant to be crushed velvet. His foot caught in the arm hole of a doublet and the leg of a pair of pants, and he didn’t quite manage to free it before attempting his next step, which left him tumbling towards the door. He hit the oak with a  _thwack!_ and a groan.

     “Oh, no! Eugene, are you alright?”

     What the–? Why was Rapunzel’s voice coming from the balcony? He rolled and looked her way, a mixed expression of confusion and shame on his face. She was holding some braided fabric, and he knew at once that she’d used it to swing from her balcony to his. He couldn’t help the sheepish smile that removed the confusion from his previous expression and added pride instead. “Hi,” he said.

     Lightly, she hopped over and around the mess to Eugene’s side, where she knelt, checking him over for scrapes and bruising. “Are you alright?” she asked again, her green eyes filled with worry.

     “I’m fine,” he assured her. “For someone who swings across three-story drops without a care in the world, you sure get worked up over a little stumble.” 

     “Can you blame me?” she asked. “After what happened to you that one time and what I can’t do anymore?”

     Eugene hated that she still thought of that so frequently. He wanted her to love herself the way she was, just like he did, and he wanted her to not be petrified that he might die again at any moment. Sitting up at last, he moved his arms and neck to prove to her that he was uninjured. She took his face in both hands and kissed him soundly, never a bad thing, but this time it made him feel extremely guilty. He didn’t deserve her. Not when he was such a slob.

     “Now, what super secret thing were you doing that you couldn’t tell me? Did it have anything to do with this colossal mess?”

     He hung his head and sighed. “It had everything to do with it. I didn’t want you to know what a lackadaisical slob I’ve become.” He raked his fingers through his hair, pushing his bangs out of his face. “I’m not used to having enough things to fill a room, so I’m also not used to putting said things away,” he explained.

     Rapunzel regarded Eugene with a tilt of her head. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of,” she told him. “Being able to keep a place clean automatically is a learned skill! Lucky for you, you have an expert in your lap!”

     She kissed him again, brief and enthusiastic, and pulled away to get to her feet. Looking around, cocked one foot up and jutted out her hip. “Okay, so… is most of this clean or dirty?”

     “I don’t even know,” he groaned. “Some of each, I guess. Why, what do you have in mind?”

     “I’m going to clean your room, of course! You can watch and take notes or something! I’ll explain what I’m doing as I go.”

     “Nope! No way. Nuh-uh. You are not cleaning up my junk for me. You’re a princess with servants, and even if you weren’t, you didn’t make this mess. I did. It’s on me.”

     “I wasn’t born a princess–’

     “Well, technically, you were.”

     “– and I don’t think like one," she continued, ignoring his comment. "I paint on the walls and bake my own cookies and do chores. And that includes cleaning the love of my life’s room when he needs my help.”

     Ugh, there was no way he could sit here and watch her clean, like some kind of slave. That was definitely not the sort of man he was, nor did he want her to get the impression that that sort of man was in any way admirable. 

     “Welp,” he concluded and got to his feet. “You’re not doing it alone. I’m not going to watch and take notes, I’m going to help. Teach me, O Tidy One, how to clean my room, like a good boy.” He grinned at her, and she beamed back.

     And she taught him. She taught him about sorting clean from dirty clothes and how to tell the difference (and confessed that even she didn’t like doing laundry, and would let the washers do that), and helped him fold and put away that which was suitable to wear. She pointed out that plates with food stuck on them were harder to wash, and might attract bugs, and while Pascal would like that, if one crawled on Eugene in the middle of the night, he might get a tongue in the ear again. She helped him sort the books into piles of ‘still reading,’ ‘finished,’ and ‘unlikely to finish, so we might as well put them back.’

     It took them the better part of the afternoon, but when they were done, Rapunzel flopped down on Eugene’s freshly-made bed, a satisfied grin on her face. “There,” she said. “Isn’t that better?”

     Eugene looked around his now-clean room. Or, mostly clean. There were still things to be taken to the kitchen, laundry, and library, but it was much better than it was.

     “Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, it is. But you know what’s even better?”

     “Hmm?” she wondered.

     “Seeing you smile and knowing it’s because of me.”

     “Because of you?” she wondered, rolling onto her side. “How so?”

     “Well, think about it. If I wasn’t so slovenly, we wouldn’t have spent the afternoon together like this, and you wouldn’t have the glow of a job well done.”

     She snickered at his explanation. “Oh, yeah. That’s convincing.”

     “Isn’t it, though?” He joined her on the bed and tenderly brushed a lock of her hair away from her face. “Really, though. Thank you. I don’t know what I’d ever do without you.”

     “Live in squalor,” she teased, moving close.

     “You know, I know of a way to make this room dirty again,” he purred.

     “We just got all the clothes off the floor, Eugene,” she giggled.

     “We can pick these up, after. You showed me how, remember?”


End file.
